Oral Hygiene

Oral hygiene gently bumps into the medical, so, as always, check with your team before listening to me. Chemo can give you epic dry mouth, which is not great for your teeth. The same teeth that will become difficult to brush because standing for an extra 2 minutes every time you eat might just be too much.

Dry Mouth

For the dry mouth, you’ll want mouthwash and lozenges. Biotene has an after-brushing mouthwash, which is great for days when the dry mouth isn’t so bad and you’ll be up and about, talking and drinking. They also have lozenges for days when you need a little more – they are very cough drop-esque. For sleeping and all those days you might as well be sleeping, the Biotene lozenges are OK, but not ideal. Xylimelt has these amazing “lozenges” for overnight. They stick to your gums and slowly release the lubricant all night. I found they lasted about 6-8 hours. So, sometimes I’d need to replace them mid-sleep but usually they’d be enough for the night.

Brushing

Dry mouth and smoothies are a recipe for cavity disasters and gum tragedies. But brushing can seem like a truly onerous task at times. If you have trouble getting up for food, how can you be expected to stay up longer to brush and floss? My solution: an ultra soft toothbrush by my bed. If I was too tired to get up and needed to brush, I’d dunk my toothbrush in my water, give a gentle brush and wash my tooth brush off on my next trip to the potty.

You can also go the disposables route; Crest and Colgate both make mini-disposable toothbrushes that have a dab of toothpaste in the middle of the brush and a little scaler tool to substitute for flossing. I found the tiny brush difficult to use though: one – because the small brush takes so long to get to all your teeth; and two – I had some peripheral neuropathy from chemo and the little brush itself was hard to hold, and the scalar easy to cut yourself on with your newly fragile skin.

Somehow, I managed to get to my first post-chemo dental visit with no cavities and a pat on the back for the good flossing that I absolutely hadn’t done.